- 3 days ago
In Hollywood, not every deal is what it seems. Join us as we look at stars who were lured in with misleading pitches, fake scripts, and broken promises, only to discover they’d been played once cameras rolled. From superhero epics to infamous comedies, these casting stories prove that sometimes the real trick happens before the role even begins.
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00:00Stop! Or my mom will shoot!
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:06And today, we'll be discussing those instances where the end product may not have exactly been what was promised to
00:12the performer in question.
00:14So do you have any regrets?
00:19Garfield, maybe.
00:21Robin Williams in Aladdin
00:23Robin Williams agreed to voice the genie in Disney's Aladdin under one strict condition.
00:30His voice and likeness couldn't be used for heavy marketing or promotional tie-ins, as he didn't want to compete
00:36with his upcoming film, Toys.
00:38And when we got Robin in the booth, you know, if that's a road map, then Robin took lots of
00:44detours.
00:44Disney agreed, but promptly broke the deal by using his voice in major ad campaigns and global product promotions.
00:54Made you look.
00:55Williams was so furious that he publicly cut ties with Disney for years, refusing to work with them until the
01:02studio issued an official public apology and sent him a rare Picasso painting as a peace offering.
01:08Disney learned the hard way that you don't break promises to a comedy legend.
01:12I thought the Earth wasn't supposed to move until the honeymoon.
01:14Halle Berry in X-Men The Last Stand
01:17This actress initially hesitated to return as Storm for X-Men The Last Stand, feeling her character was chronically underused.
01:25To convince Berry over to their side, executives showed her a revised script where Storm saved a village in Africa,
01:33giving her character a massive heroic moment.
01:51Impressed, Berry signed on the dotted line.
01:53However, once production began, Berry discovered that the specific African rescue sequence was nowhere to be found in the real
02:00script.
02:00And he asked the executives, he says, what's the script? And they say, oh, that's for Halle Berry. Once she
02:06signs on, don't worry about it. We'll throw it into the trash.
02:09I'm not buying this.
02:10Oh, no, she famously did have a problem that she wasn't in the movie enough.
02:12Berry reportedly felt betrayed, though she powered through the shoot and made the most of her expanded role as a
02:18team leader anyway.
02:20I just wanted her to have a voice, you know, and if I was on screen for five minutes, that's
02:23fine, but let it be five meaningful minutes.
02:25Let it be five minutes of, you know, of saying something that mattered.
02:30Whoopi Goldberg was caught in a legal trap after making an informal verbal agreement to star in the 1995 film
02:40Theodore Rex.
02:41When she attempted to back out of the project after seeing the script's poor quality, the producers revealed they considered
02:47her oral commitment to be a legally binding contract.
02:50It's a dinosaur.
02:51You're not a speciesist, aren't you?
02:54Give me results by primetime tomorrow, and I'll double your regular commissions.
03:00It's a dinosaur.
03:01Come on.
03:02To enforce her involvement, the producers slapped Goldberg with a massive $20 million breach of contract lawsuit.
03:09Faced with the threat of immense financial damage in court, Goldberg was effectively maneuvered into starring in the movie.
03:19And you think you're going to get somebody?
03:24She eventually settled the dispute by agreeing to appear alongside her puppet dinosaur co-star for a $7 million paycheck,
03:31$2 million more than previously arranged.
03:33I get to pick my new partner.
03:36What?
03:37So, what are you doing the next 20 years?
03:40Oh!
03:41You mean that soon?
03:43Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2.
03:45Fresh off his Oscar-nominated comeback in The Wrestler, Mickey Rourke signed on to play the villain Whiplash in Iron
03:51Man 2.
03:52You come from a family of thieves and butchers, and now, like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your
04:04own history.
04:05Rourke spent months researching Russian prison culture, learning the language, and building depth into his character to make him more
04:12than a generic bad guy.
04:14I just didn't want to do a one-dimensional meanie, I just wanted to kind of give the character, like,
04:20not stereotype him.
04:22However, during post-production, Marvel executives trimmed the majority of his character-driven scenes in favor of flashy action and
04:30broader Marvel Cinematic Universe setups.
04:32Rourke was furious, publicly slamming director Jon Favreau and Marvel for tricking him into thinking he was making an artistic
04:40film,
04:40rather than a popcorn flick of mindless CGI action.
04:44The Russian government was really nice, or the Russian people in the city, in Moscow, they, uh, I was over
04:49there for something else,
04:50and then when this thing happened, I thought, you know, I want to go see one of the prisons.
04:53The cast of The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers.
04:57In 1973, director Richard Lester and producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind shot a massive adaptation of The Three Musketeers.
05:07Ah, Musketeers.
05:09Dueling in defiance of the Edicts.
05:12Uh, this is a private matter, sir, would you please be on your way?
05:15Realizing they had enough footage for two feature films,
05:18the filmmakers split the material into The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers without informing the star-studded cast.
05:25The actors, including Charlton Heston, Faye Dunaway, and Oliver Reed,
05:30only discovered that they were in two distinct movies at the first film's premiere,
05:34despite receiving compensation for just one.
05:37We sent you no wine?
05:38But we can guess who did.
05:40An ambush on the road, poison wine?
05:42It occurs to me that m'lady is persistence.
05:46Furious over working twice the films for single pay, several cast members sued.
05:51This controversy prompted the Screen Actors Guild to create the Salkind Clause,
05:56requiring contracts to explicitly state how many films are being produced.
06:00Ah, that was in the old days, you see, when we were indeed one for all, and all for one.
06:08Want to not feel cheated like the cast of The Three Musketeers?
06:11Then click the QR code and dive into a world of pop culture fandom and lists galore.
06:16You picked the genre that you're just great in.
06:19Yes, it's action.
06:20You know how to hit it out of the park.
06:23You have to do what you know, folks.
06:24Keanu Reeves in The Watcher
06:26Is that something that you do with all of your patients?
06:29Yeah, with most of them.
06:32Would you prefer that I didn't?
06:34Yes.
06:35I'd rather you not.
06:36Keanu Reeves was trapped into starring in the 2000 thriller The Watcher
06:40after an acquaintance allegedly forged his signature on a contract.
06:44Reeves had no interest in the script.
06:46But because he could not conclusively prove the forgery,
06:50he faced the threat of a costly lawsuit if he backed out.
06:53To avoid an expensive legal battle,
06:55Reeves reluctantly agreed to perform the role.
06:58Hi, Joel.
07:02How's the heart, pal?
07:03His minor part was expanded into a main villain role,
07:06paying him scale while co-stars earned millions.
07:09To minimize fallout, Reeves negotiated an agreement
07:12allowing him to skip promotion and remain quiet about the incident for one year.
07:16I want you to say thank you.
07:18I want you to say thank you for coming here and saving your pathetic life.
07:22Kate Mulgrew in The Principle
07:24Best known as Captain Janeway in the TV series Star Trek Voyager,
07:29Kate Mulgrew was hired to narrate a science documentary called The Principle.
07:33For almost 500 years,
07:35as we have looked further and further out into the cosmos,
07:38everything has seemed to confirm this principle over and over again.
07:43Mulgrew believed she was narrating a standard,
07:45mainstream astrophysics film about the origins of the universe.
07:49To her horror upon the film's release,
07:51she discovered that the documentary was actually a propaganda piece pushing geocentrism,
07:57the disproven theory that the sun and universe revolved around Earth.
08:00Observational science claimed to have established an error
08:04in the church's understanding of scripture.
08:06And the first great battle between faith and science was joined.
08:12Mulgrew publicly released a fiery statement clarifying that she was completely duped,
08:17tricked by misleading producer pitches,
08:19and strongly disagreed with the film's anti-scientific views.
08:23Remarkably, the Copernican principle seems to be the ground upon which faith and science are again,
08:29at long last, approaching one another.
08:32Paula Abdul in Bruno.
08:34Pop star and TV judge Paula Abdul thought she was sitting down for an interview
08:39with a distinguished German lifestyle show host to discuss her career and charity work.
08:44In reality, she was cast into Sacha Baron Cohen's outrageous satirical film Bruno.
08:49These two Mexican gardeners come into the house and he tells them to drop on all fours
08:56and for me to sit down on them.
08:58I said, I'm not going to do that.
09:00And he goes, just sit.
09:01Abdul was instructed to use human furniture,
09:04sitting on the backs of men on all fours,
09:06while being offered bizarre food and absurd questions.
09:10How important is it for you to help other people?
09:15Helping other people is so vital to my life.
09:17Um, it's like the air that I breathe.
09:20Sasha's team kept up the elaborate ruse until Abdul realized she was being mocked
09:25and stormed off set.
09:27She only discovered the true nature of the project when the movie hit theaters worldwide.
09:31But when I literally found out, oh my God, I'm in his movie.
09:34This is crazy.
09:36Wow.
09:36Are you upset about it?
09:37No.
09:37Are you fine with it?
09:38I'm out.
09:38I think it's hysterical.
09:39Sylvester Stallone in Stop or My Mom Will Shoot.
09:42This action legend was tricked into starring in the universally panned comedy Stop or My
09:47Mom Will Shoot by his arch rival Arnold Schwarzenegger.
09:50Mom, what are you doing here?
09:53Mommy's got to change you.
09:54Arnold read the terrible script, knew it was a guaranteed disaster,
09:58and publicly leaked fake rumors that he was aggressively pursuing the main role.
10:03Desperate to beat his rival to the punch,
10:05Stallone immediately called his agent and demanded to sign the deal before Schwarzenegger could.
10:10And so when he heard that, because he was in competition,
10:13he immediately called him and says, look, whatever it takes, I do the movie.
10:18So we did the movie.
10:20Wow.
10:20Because the movie went major into the toilet.
10:23Schwarzenegger later admitted that he deliberately set the trap to sabotage Sly's career streak.
10:28Stallone has since called the movie one of the absolute worst films in cinematic history.
10:33I don't think Arnold can do this one because he's playing like an American cop and they don't
10:37have German accents.
10:37He's just not going to, because I'm telling you, if you don't do this thing,
10:41stop on my mom and shoot.
10:42He's in.
10:43He's in.
10:44I go, okay, I'll do it.
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11:02Boom.
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11:09Influence.
11:12Bill Murray in Garfield the Movie
11:14Bill Murray famously agreed to voice Garfield because he misread writer Joel Cohen's name
11:19on the script, mistaking him for Joel Cohen of the Oscar-winning Coen Brothers.
11:24Come on, buddy.
11:24Come on.
11:25Come on.
11:25No, seriously.
11:26Come on up.
11:28Down you go.
11:29We just hit it off.
11:31So great because we both love the same thing.
11:33And that is...
11:35Me.
11:36Me.
11:36Murray only realized his mistake mid-recording when the jokes fell flat.
11:40But that wasn't Murray's first time being duped.
11:43Years earlier, he was outfoxed into starring in Ghostbusters 2.
11:47Reluctant to do a sequel, he agreed after the team reunited and pitched an incredible
11:51story concept.
11:54Only a Carpathian would come back to life now and choose New York.
12:02Tasty pick, bonehead!
12:04However, once filming started, Murray discovered the studio had quietly swapped out that great
12:09script for a completely different one, leaving him trapped under false pretenses.
12:14But the question is, why in the world Garfield 3?
12:18Can this be just between us?
12:20Yes.
12:20Drugs cost money.
12:21What are your thoughts on Hollywood's often disingenuous hiring practices?
12:25Let us know in the comments.